Send in the Clones
by Lucillia
Summary: Thanks to a variant of the Gemino Curse, Harry Potter is sorted into Slytherin. He's also sorted into Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff as well.
1. 4 Way Split

Nobody knew exactly why the Seventh Year Ravenclaw had done it. Some speculated that he'd been trying to kill Harry Potter, and others speculated that he had figured that that would be the most public way to prove whatever theory or show off whatever experimental spell he'd been working on, since normally the Gemino Curse wouldn't work on a human being.

It had been in the middle of the Sorting, and Harry's name had just been called. As the boy separated himself from his peers in the waiting line of First Years to make his way to the hat, the Seventh Year Ravenclaw had leapt up and cast what most people believed was the Gemino Curse, due to the affect since nobody could clearly remember the incantation the boy had used before he had been killed in the ensuing scuffle that had been meant to subdue him so he could be questioned.

What happened next had caused an uproar. Where there had been one Harry Potter, there was now four. In the confusion that surrounded the incident, everyone had lost track of who the original was, and couldn't vanish the extras for fear that one of the "extras" was in fact the original. To make matters worse, all four Harrys shared the same memories, and each believed themselves to be the original.

Three days later, after long days and nights in the infirmary where he'd been poked and prodded by a wide range of experts in a number of fields who had been hastily called to Hogwarts, Harry Potter was sorted. All four of him.

As each Harry who had plenty of courage, didn't have a bad mind, and would have done well in Slytherin sat down at their house tables, they found themselves wondering how long they would be staying. With the Gemino Curse, the duplicate objects eventually vanished. The experts who had been consulted believed that three of them would do the same, and nobody knew exactly when that would be, or what would happen when they did.

Harry seated himself next to Ron who looked somewhat concerned for him. He'd been the first to be sorted, and had begged the hat not to put him in Slytherin. As he watched another one of the other Harrys be sorted into Slytherin, he wondered why. They were the same person, weren't they? Wouldn't he have also begged the hat to not put him in Slytherin?

As Harry seated himself at the Slytherin table, he did his best to avoid Malfoy and his book-ends who were speculatively scrutinizing him much like everyone else in the house, probably wondering how a pair of people who were supposedly completely identical to each-other could end up both in Slytherin and Gryffindor. He knew how, but wasn't about to share with the rest of the class.

Harry made his way to the Ravenclaw table. He had asked to be put somewhere other than Slytherin and Gryffindor for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he didn't want to be there to witness it if his counterpart vanished rather than him. It was possible that it could be both extremely painful, and extremely gruesome, and he had no desire to watch himself die, especially considering the fact that it would mean that there was a two in three chance that he too would soon follow. The hat told him that it had told the other two that they didn't have a bad mind, so Ravenclaw wasn't too far-fetched.

Harry sat down at the Hufflepuff table. He vaguely remembered something about Helga Hufflepuff saying that she'd take the rest in the song the hat had sang the night before, and he was the rest. The girl who he sat down next to smiled and introduced herself and the girl who was seated to her right. They both seemed friendly enough. Maybe he could grow to like it here.


	2. Diagon Alley Again

All four Harry Potters had been taken to Diagon Alley immediately after their Sorting Breakfast to sort out the little problem with their supplies, namely the fact that aside from their wand which had also been duplicated since the original Harry had been holding it at the time, there were only enough supplies for one Harry. All four of the boys had agreed to share Hedwig and had worked out a rough visitation schedule, but sharing other things such as textbooks would be problematic considering the fact that they were all in separate houses. Things like this had happened to a lesser extent to a few sets of twins who had been sent to separate houses and therefore couldn't share like their parents had planned over the years, and on one memorable occasion two centuries back, to a set of identical triplets whose parents had rather uncreatively named them all Samantha before giving them different middle names.

This trip to Diagon Alley started much the same as the last one had - if one excluded the whole rescue from a rock in the middle of the ocean - with Hagrid herding Harry Potter through the Leaky Cauldron where all four of him were swamped by admirers and whatnot before they entered the alley and headed to Gringotts. When they reached Gringotts, Hagrid brought them to a counter which was manned by an exceedingly ancient looking Goblin. Two of the Harrys got a close-up look of the creature's wizened face as he peered over the counter.

"Dear God Below! Not again!" the Goblin wailed before he started slamming his head down on his ledger repeatedly.

"Griphook! Griphook! Take Misters Potter down to his vault!" another teller yelled as two other bank employees grabbed the poor old teller who had ceased slamming his head into his ledger and was now trying to slit his wrists with his quill.

"Is he okay?" Harry asked after the teller who was being dragged away.

"Just a nervous breakdown." the new teller said as a pair of very familiar and virtually identical goblins arrived. "It happens alot to those who have been tasked to sort out the William Williams inheritance case over the last sixty years. He should be right as rain and back to work in a week or so."

"Either that or dead." the goblin muttered under his breath as the Griphooks - who were a pair of very familiar looking identical twins - started to lead the Harrys away. The Griphooks were actual identical twins rather than a pair of unfortunate copies who were waiting for the other to vanish. Apparently, there was a story behind this involving them being pranksters in their youth and constantly changing places, which had led to them both being given the same name upon reaching adulthood. The Harrys learned this when one of the Harrys had asked as they got into the carts.

"Poor sod. William Williams just had to get both of himself killed by dueling himself. Of course it didn't help that his firstborn sons were born on the same day, at the exact same time." the teller the Harrys had just left behind sighed as he returned to his post and finished analyzing the emerald that a wizard had just given to the bank as a payment on his loan.

After gathering some gold from the vault and wondering if the four of them would be around long enough to deplete it four times as fast as they would have individually, the boys went on a shopping trip that went pretty much the same way the last one had since they pretty much bought the same stuff that they had the last time, except for the fact that there was no Draco Malfoy at Madam Malkins, and all of the children they spotted in the alley were at least a couple months younger than them, with most of them being several years younger than them. Everyone stopped and stared at them as they passed, but that had happened last time as well after he had brushed his bangs away from his eyes without thinking half-way through the trip.

All too soon, the day during which Hagrid had bought them ice cream at Florean Fortiscue's where they wondered over the fact that the one that he had purchased for the Slytherin Harry was a good deal smaller than the rest and looked like it lived up to its appellation of Grasshopper Surprise if the insect legs sticking out of it were anything to judge by came to an end, and after a quick meal at a local Fish and Chips takeaway, they and their purchases were herded back to Hogwarts.

That evening, as Gryffindor Harry read his Transfiguration textbook, Ravenclaw Harry listened to one of the Muggleborn Third-Years dissect the sport of Quiddich, and Hufflepuff Harry learned how to play Gobstones, Slytherin Harry sat on his bed hungrily scooping Grasshopper Surprise out of its Ever-Cool tub. It wasn't too surprising that he liked it. One of the few sweets he'd gotten in his life before the train trip to Hogwarts had been the chocolate covered cricket that Dudley had dared him to eat after-all. He drew the line at the Cockroach Clusters he'd seen when Hagrid had let them run through a sweet shop in the alley though. Cockroaches were filthy, nasty, bugs that lived in dirty homes, not like grasshoppers and crickets which hopped free in the wild amongst the meadows and streams rather than under unclean fridges. He'd have to thank Hagrid for his recommendation of such an unorthodox ice cream flavor. He wouldn't have had the nerve to try it otherwise, due to the fact that he didn't want to be seen doing things that were too far outside the norm since he didn't want to be called a freak here as well as at home. He was enough of a freak already.


	3. Interlude: Snape

Severus Snape felt like tearing his hair out. Instead of dealing with James Potter's brat a couple times a week, he would have to deal with him every day. Not only was the boy in his house, but he was also in the three other houses, which meant that he would have to deal with the boy in class twice as often as any other student. Four times as often when one considered the fact that there would be two of him in each class he had with the First Years, and this could go on for a very long time, as there was an unsubstantiated rumor of a vault deep within Gringotts which was accessed for the first time in more than a century which was filled to the brim with duplicated objects, and the body of a man who had gone missing eighty years before.

He didn't know what was worse, the prospect of dealing with four of James Potter's spawn instead of the one he'd been expecting, or the fact that the small boy in his house that he was beginning to see bits of Lily in could vanish at any moment, leaving behind a James clone, a bookworm, and a duffer.

The fact that the first and second year students were given an enormous amount of free time, especially during the first week where the children were given only one subject per day so they could get used to their new classes wasn't doing any good for his peace of mind. All of the Potters would have the chance to plot mischief together, since they seemed to meet up once a day since they'd been released from the Hospital Wing two days ago for some nefarious reason. Fortunately, he'd already had a Potions class without two of the Potters who had been in the hospital wing at the time, but he would have to deal with two of them first thing today, with one of them being in his own house.

The Gryffindor Potter had befriended the youngest Weasley son who constantly dominated the boy's attention, rather territorially fended off just about everyone else who tried to befriend the boy, and rebuffed the attentions of the Potters that weren't in Gryffindor judging them to be inferior or even evil copies of his friend. The Ravenclaw Potter had begun to bury himself in books which was rather odd considering the fact that his other three companions displayed no such behavior, and could often be seen in discussion with housemates that were in the years above him. The Hufflepuff Potter seemed to be rather affable, and had befriended at least half of his new house. The Slytherin Potter had mostly kept to himself, cautiously watching his housemates, which was advisable considering the loyalties of the families of a number of his housemates.

He found it rather odd that the differences between the boys had started manifesting so soon, rather than after an adjustment phase of some sort where they began feeling out a new world which had different expectations for them depending on where they were placed. How had that come to be? Why had that come to be? Tests had determined that all four boys had been identical with the exact same memories when they had been duplicated. How could they have ended up in all of the houses, or even different houses for that matter?

While it wasn't uncommon for the hat to dither over a decision for a while, few if any students possessed the traits of all four houses to such a degree that each house was a viable option. The hat had been torn between Slytherin and Ravenclaw for him, barely mentioning the courage he possessed, and pointing out that his loyalty was to two people in the entire world, Lily and his mother Eileen. If there had been more of him, like there was of Potter, there was a good chance that they have been evenly divided between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, if they all didn't end up in one or the other that was.

He would have two of the Potters in his class after breakfast, so maybe then he could take measure of the boy then and determine his true nature. If that were at all possible.

After a rather stressful lesson in which the exceedingly clumsy Longbottom brat had destroyed a cauldron, he'd had his answer. The brat was Slytherin through and through.

Oh sure, the Gryffindor Potter had been a bit mouthy, but no worse than the little Malfoy was when there weren't any authority figures close enough to clearly witness what was going on. He'd seen how both Potters had warily tracked him, and how the Gryffindor Potter had stood up to him only after gauging the reaction of his housemates, and further stood up to him after receiving positive reinforcement. The boy seemed to be almost starved for positive attention. Both of them had seemed that way, considering how his Potter reacted when he complimented the manner in which he was preparing his ingredients.

Later that evening, during the staff meeting, he simply smirked when the other Heads mentioned how Potter had exemplified the dominant virtues of their houses. Of course he did. The brat didn't want to call too much attention to himself, and the best way to not do that even despite the circumstances was to do his best to fit in.


	4. Discussions in Slytherin

Harry sighed as he grabbed the ink bottle before too much ink could be wasted. His Transfiguration homework was a lost cause. Things in Slytherin weren't too bad, considering how much worse they could be with the number of Death Eaters' children who had been sorted here. Professor Snape had had a discussion with the entire house his first night here, telling everyone that if anything happened to him, they'd be the prime suspects, amongst other things.

For the most part, his housemates, especially those in the years above him, had ignored his presence for the last few weeks. Since the housemates who were ignoring the fact he existed were the ones who would most likely hurt him if Professor Snape hadn't gotten himself involved, he viewed this as a good thing. As long as he was being ignored, he wasn't being cursed, hit, or worse. To be frank, it was a bit like it was at the Dursleys' during the last month of his stay, after Hagrid had taken him to Diagon Alley the first time. That same vibe of his being unwanted surrounded a number of his housemates.

A couple of his housemates had made somewhat friendly overtures though, so it wasn't like he was completely alone like he had been at the Dursleys where kids his age were too afraid to even look at him lest they incur Dudley's wrath. He could say that Zabini and Bulstrode didn't seem to be enemies, and that Nott was mostly neutral toward his existence, but wasn't afraid to ask for help on homework.

His main problem in Slytherin was Malfoy's lot. They wouldn't stop bothering him, and constantly pulled pranks such as the one that had just ruined his homework. He did his best to ignore them, but they made it difficult to do so.

"What do you want Malfoy?" he asked as he mopped up the ink that had splashed across the parchment and spilled onto the table he was seated at. He may as well get the confrontation out of the way since ignoring the other boy who was far too similar to Dudley for his liking wasn't working.

"I want you to apologize." Malfoy said. Something in the boy's expression said that the boy wanted more than a simple apology.

He probably expected him to get down on his knees and grovel or something before he graciously deigned to forgive him for whatever perceived slight he was persecuting him for. With Malfoy being like Dudley, the only thing he'd get out of it was humiliation in front of his housemates and a loss of what little face he may have. Malfoy wouldn't stop tormenting him if he gave in to him, and he'd probably lose the people who were at the very least not hostile to him.

"Apologize? Apologize for what?" he asked.

"For insulting me." Malfoy replied.

"When did I insult you?" he asked, though he had a strong suspicion as to what incident Malfoy was referring to.

"On the trip to school." Malfoy replied, confirming his suspicion.

"The way I remember that incident going," he said "You barged into the compartment that Ronald Weasley and myself were occupying without so much as a by your leave, rudely interrupted a conversation I was having with Weasley, insulted the first person my age to befriend me, namely Weasley, deigned to offer your "friendship" to me in a most insulting manner, threatened me when I refused, and had your lackeys attempt to steal from me. Did I miss anything?"

Malfoy turned bright red and stormed off. Crabbe and Goyle followed after him like a pair of lost Great Dane puppies. Everyone who had stopped to watch the confrontation turned back to their work with the exception of Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass who moved from the corner where they usually sat together with Pansy Parkinson whispering and giggling and seated themselves on either side of him.

"That was brilliant!" Greengrass said. "I haven't seen Draco that mad since Goyle tripped and spilled punch on his fancy dress robes at that Christmas party."

"I don't understand why you defended Weasley though." she continued.

"Maybe because he's useful." he replied as he pulled out a parchment to get another start on his Transfiguration homework.

"How is Weasley useful?" Parkinson, who had overheard the comment when she went to see why her friends were sitting with Harry Potter of all people asked. "Besides being a blood traitor, he's a pig and a jealous prat. He chases away anyone who tries to befriend the Gryffindor Potter, including you and the other two Potters."

"First off, besides being MY jealous prat, he comes with three other Weasleys, one of whom is a Prefect, and an automatic Light reputation." he replied. "Then there's the fact that he also comes with relative immunity from the Weasley twins who don't want to get yelled at by their mother for pranking Ickle Ronnikins and his little friends, and possible friendship status with the Weasley twins in the future. Then there's also the fact that unlike Slytherin where I'm left alone, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff where I'm left alone when I want to be, Gryffindors can't seem to take a hint, and often come to bother me about things I don't want to talk about. With Ron around, just about everyone knows not to approach."

"How does any of that benefit you though?" Davis asked.

He simply smiled and pulled a Gryffindor tie and house badge for the front of his robes out of his pocket. He'd gotten the Gryffindor tie when they'd been out shopping, and his Ravenclaw self had purchased the stick-on badge from an older housemate who sold them as a novelty item since anyone other than him couldn't use them as anything else. While people didn't usually know the names of people outside their house or year, they tended to remember faces, and what house that face belonged to. Fortunately, his face belonged to all of the houses. As long as they were around that was.

"I bribed Peeves to tell me when the Weasley twins were approaching. The Weasley twins didn't realize that I'm not the Gryffindor me the last two times we ran into each-other." he said as he stuffed the objects back into his pocket. "Of course the fact that I lost Gryffindor ten points after our second meeting didn't hurt too much either."

"You what? !" a Sixth Year named Flint who had been studying nearby yelled sounding surprised.

"I'd just escaped the Weasley twins, and ended up tripping coming down the stairs, and landing on one of the professors." he replied, telling the story to all whose attention had been drawn by Flint's yell. "If it hadn't been McGonagall, they'd've lost more points."

Half the common room started laughing as they pictured him falling down the stairs and landing on Professor McGonagall. It had been a rather funny event now that he looked back on it a couple days later, seeing as she'd gone ass over teakettle on a landing, sending the papers that she'd been carrying flying in all directions. When it happened though, it hadn't been nearly as funny. He'd thought that she was going to kill him when he'd caught the look on her face.

Gryffindor him would probably be getting revenge on him for the detentions he'd caused as well as the point loss.


	5. The Switch

"Thanks" Harry said as he traded clothes with himself. He'd been at the school for a month and a half, and his housemates had already started driving him nuts.

"Doesn't have a bad mind" didn't entirely translate to "Loves studying above all else", meaning that Ravenclaw wasn't entirely the best fit for him. It wouldn't have been so bad if the upper years didn't take every opportunity they could to study **him**. Three of his Sixth Year housemates were collaborating on a paper in which he and the phenomenon which had supposedly led to his existence were the main topic. This had resulted in them conducting a number of experiments on him.

If Professor Flitwick hadn't stepped in, he probably would have vanished or whatever earlier than scheduled, if he wasn't the original that was. If he had been the original, the other three would have vanished earlier than scheduled, and he wasn't entirely certain that that was a good thing. For one, he and the others were very firm on the fact that they all were alive, and that to vanish would mean to die in this case. Another thing that was uncertain was where the memories of their separate existences would go, and what they would do when they got there. If they all went back to the original, it could cause serious problems, because a person couldn't be in four places at once, and remembering being in four places at once could cause some sort of mental breakdown.

Aside from being experimented on, a sizable number his housemates tended to grate on him a bit. Those who were a bit bookish weren't half bad. It was the ones on the other end of the spectrum, the bossy know-it-alls that got to him. All of the comments of "You should already know this" had sent him to the point where he had wanted to throw a screaming fit. It was a miracle that he hadn't thrown one already.

He liked learning, especially if it was things that were useful to him. What he didn't like was being told what he should know, and being spoken down to for not already knowing it.

One bonus of his being in Ravenclaw was the fact that his grades were better than those of his other selves. His Slytherin self trailed as a close second due to all of the time he spent studying since he didn't have anything else to do. His Hufflepuff self came in third, because of the amount of time he spent interacting with his housemates. His Gryffindor self came in last because of the fact that he had Quiddich practice, and because he seemed to be using Ronald Weasley as a benchmark for some reason as the tried to fit into Gryffindor by not being seen as overly studious.

He needed a bit of a break from Ravenclaw. Going to Slytherin was right out, since he wanted a vacation and being in Slytherin wasn't a vacation if your name was Harry Potter. Gryffindor was out due to the fact that he could end up giving himself away during Quiddich practice since he hadn't been allowed on the pitch while his Gryffindor self practiced, and therefore could make an elementary mistake that his Gryffindor self would have already learned not to. The only remaining choice had been Hufflepuff.

His Hufflepuff self had rather kindly obliged, and that had led him here to an abandoned classroom where the two of them were trading uniforms.

"Remember," his Hufflepuff self said as he pulled on his robes. "Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, and Justin Finch-Fletchley are my best friends in my year, and I've been having problems with Zacharias Smith. If I er, you need help, it's best to go to Cedric Diggory. He's a Third Year."

"Thanks." he said. "I get on well enough with my dorm-mates. Entwhistle is a bit bossy, and he snores though. You'll want to look out for some of the older students. They can't always resist trying to experiment on me, even though Professor Flitwick had a talk with them about that."

"I see." his Hufflepuff self said, looking slightly nervous and as if he wanted to take his uniform back and call the whole thing off.

He left before his other self could do so.

He found the Hufflepuff common room to be a rather cozy affair, and could see why his Hufflepuff self was happy here. He'd received more friendly greetings than he did in Ravenclaw when he'd entered, and noticed that there were more people playing games in the common room than there were in Ravenclaw. Though Ravenclaws loved to study, they did take some time off for less academic pursuits. He'd had a rather rousing game of Gobstones with Corner, Boot, and Goldstein earlier that month.

In a corner, one of "his" friends was playing Exploding Snap with a couple of second years. When he moved to join them, Abbot moved aside to give him room to join the next round of the game.

Three hours later, as he sat in the middle of a study group that consisted of himself and "his" best friends who were being tutored by a Fourth Year boy debating whether or not he was tired enough to go to bed, Professors Sprout and Flitwick showed up, leading a rather sheepish looking Harry Potter in Ravenclaw robes.

"The Sixth Years put a tracking charm on you." his other self said as soon as they spotted him. "They didn't turn me in until after they did a full examination. A boy whose father's a doctor tried to make me pee in a cup."

He winced. He'd given a couple of urine samples himself to get a certain set of scholars off his back. He'd learned that one of those samples had even been owled to said boy's father so it could be tested.

He'd been forced to endure a long lecture on why one didn't sneak into the common room of another house after he'd returned his Hufflepuff self's uniform. He'd then been given detention and returned to his own common room.

While in theory it seemed like a good idea, trading houses wasn't practical. Especially since there was a tracking charm on him which Professor Flitwick didn't remove since it was the only reliable way to tell him apart from his other selves, and there was a rumor going around the school that his Slytherin self was out to lose House Points for the other houses. He had a sneaking suspicion that his other selves would soon have tracking charms or something similar on them as well to prevent a recurrence of this incident.

Deciding that he was tired, he headed up to his dormitory and to bed. Michael Corner was already there.

"You tried to switch houses?" Michael asked, looking and sounding betrayed.

"Temporarily." he replied as he opened his trunk to grab a set of pajamas.

"Why?" Michael asked, looking less happy with each passing second.

"Because I needed a vacation from the Sixth Years." he replied. It was mostly the truth. He hadn't really needed a vacation from Michael, since he wasn't one of the Bossy Know-It-Alls who were mostly in the year above him, with the exceptions of Brocklehurst, MacDougal, and Entwhistle the snorer.

"Oh." Michael said, suddenly looking understanding. "Yeah, I'd probably need a vacation from them too if I were you."

With that, he'd been forgiven. Until it was learned that he'd lost the house twenty points with his little "stunt" that was.


	6. Regarding Christmas Presents

Dumbledore sighed. He had quite the dilemma. The gift that sat on his desk waiting to be addressed was just one symptom of the very big problem he had. There was no telling which of the four Harry Potters was the real Harry Potter and therefore the subject of the prophesy that would rid the world of Voldemort for good since the whatever it was in the boy's scar had also been duplicated. It wouldn't do to alienate one of the Harrys only to discover that he was the true Harry further down the line.

The problem was, there was only one Invisibility cloak, just as there was only one set of relatives that were close enough in blood that Lily's protection would work. Thanks to the Dursleys, everyone in the neighborhood knew Harry by sight, and modifying the memories of all of them would be difficult, especially if they missed one during a mass-modification as had happened back in the 1930s when they'd missed that one muggle who was still evading them to this day and telling any number of incredulous audiences about the flying lizard that had made off with his beach umbrella as he did so.

Miss just one of the boy's neighbors and...

Sighing, he poked the brightly wrapped package. If the boys hadn't regularly met up to compare notes like they did, he might've gotten away with giving the cloak to either the Gryffindor or the Hufflepuff Harry. Not that he favored them mind you, but if he'd given it to the Ravenclaw one, odds were that the entire house would try to dissect it, and if he gave it to the Slytherin one, odds were that it'd be stolen before the week was out. The boys did regularly compare notes however, which made such a moot point.

There were a few days until Christmas though, so he still had time to find a solution to his problem, even if it meant going to Filch and demanding the man turn over some of the numerous items that he'd confiscated from James Potter over the years and neglected to return. None of those items would equal the value of one of the legendary Hallows, but in the eyes of a boy who was starved for any scrap of information on his parents thanks to that insufferable Dursley woman, anything that belonged to his father might be of equal worth.

* * *

In another part of the castle, the four Harrys sat together flipping through catalogs grateful to the upperclassman who'd told the Hufflepuff Harry about Owl Ordering, since they hadn't known how they would get their friends/friendly acquaintances presents otherwise. Occasionally, one of the Harrys would speak up, to see if what the others thought about him getting this person that present.

While doing so seemed odd, since all of them were ostensibly the same person, the truth was that since they had not been allowed to switch and Slytherin Harry's Gryffindor tie and house badge had been confiscated, the other Harry's didn't know each-other's friends as well as they themselves did. Sometimes it helped to have advice from an outside perspective belonging to someone who thought along similar lines as you did though. Knowing this, each of the Harrys thought carefully about what they'd seen of the other Harry's friends and provided advice accordingly.

Slytherin Harry and Hufflepuff Harry were great helps when it came to Hermione whom both Gryffindor Harry and Ravenclaw Harry had befriended under completely different circumstances. Hermione had been an interesting case, since both had to be careful not to get the girl the same present though both Gryffindor Harry and Ravenclaw Harry thought the same item was perfect for her. Fortunately, Hermione was one of the few overlaps when it came to friends.

Gryffindor Harry had befriended Hermione after he and Ron had gone looking for her the day the troll had gotten in. Ravenclaw Harry had befriended Hermione two weeks later after the girl had loosened up a bit and became a bit less of a know-it-all since she had friends to help her correct that behavior. Ravenclaw Harry had of course ended up befriending her in the library when they were doing research for their homework. Prior to the Troll incident, Hermione had generally kept to herself when in the library, and had come across as being a bit snobbish when Ravenclaw Harry had encountered her when they were in the library together. It was entirely possible that Hermione hat mistaken him for Gryffindor Harry that day, since she spoke less formally around him when they had gone hunting for books despite the fact that she was more guarded around his classmates with whom he'd been studying.

Eventually, two separate presents for Hermione were picked, and Gryffindor Harry went looking tor the perfect present for Ron. Ron was a tricky matter for all sorts of reasons. As well as being exceedingly jealous at times, the boy had a rather prickly sense of pride, and wouldn't take anything he perceived to be charity, especially when people might see him doing boy was obsessed with Quiddich and chess however.

While Gryffindor Harry was deciding on what to get Ron, Slytherin Harry was drawing up lists and charts as he tried to figure out who to buy a present for and how much to spend on it, and exactly who he could get away with sending a card or nothing at all. While Draco would be receiving nothing from him, the elder Malfoys would be receiving a card that he was carefully picking out. While Slytherin Harry - well, all of the Harrys really - wanted to be Great, he had no great love for playing politics. That was how the game was played however, especially in Slytherin, and if he wanted to fit in, that was what he would have to do.

While Gryffindor Harry was trying to find a present for Ron that wasn't too expensive nor too cheap and wouldn't insult the boy's pride, and Slytherin Harry was planning out his Christmas list, Hufflepuff Harry was playing around with a home furnishings catalog. The thing had an insert that could call up swatches of fabric of any color, pattern, or material that you could imagine, and Harry was having fun getting it to call up the most ludicrous things he could think of including tie-dyed silk that was done up in eye-searingly bright colors.

While Hufflepuff Harry played with the Home Furnishings catalog, toying with the idea of having a levitating armchair sent to his relatives, Ravenclaw Harry sorted through the Flourish and Blotts catalog searching for presents for his dormmates.

If anyone asked later, all four of them would say that they had fun. That had been the least stressful bit of shopping that they'd ever done, especially since they hadn't had people staring at them the entire time they did so, or sniffing at them and telling them to hurry up while they added several more boxes and bags to the burden they were carrying. All in all, it was a fun and above all, productive afternoon.

* * *

At her writing desk in her home at #4 Privet Drive, Petunia Dursley scowled as she taped a single pence to the third of four letters identical that she was writing. She would've written one and had her husband copy it three times, but that would have had Vernon going even further out of his way for the boy he so despised than he already did.

Her budget for Harry's present this year was fifty pence. She'd gotten it down to less than ten, what with the cheap paper and the fact that she still had that stupid postage box that automatically sent letters to the Post Office in Diagon Alley. She would've gotten rid of the thing ages ago, but it had belonged to her parents. That, and it was the easiest means of communicating with that boy's headmaster since she refused to get one of those filthy birds.

She'd told herself not to get attached the day she'd gone out to fetch the milk and found a baby and a note, a note that confirmed that the boy was just going to go off and die like Lily did. Since the boy had been a trouble magnet since day one, she knew that the day would be coming sooner or later. It had almost come sooner, but as it turned out, that was a false alarm, and now there was more of the boy to not get attached to, especially since three-fourths of them would be vanishing someday.

As soon as the penny was attached to the note, she folded it, stuffed it in the waiting envelope, stacked the envelope on top of the other two, and pulled the final sheet of note paper towards her.

"Almost done Pet?" Vernon called from the armchair where he was reading the paper.

"Yes" she replied as she finished the opening of the letter with a vicious stroke.

It just figured that that boy would become even more of a nuisance just to spite them. As it was, she had absolutely no idea what she'd be telling the neighbors if that boy dared come home for the Summer despite the fact that she had asked that he not.


	7. Regarding Christmas Itself

Christmas was absolutely brilliant as far as Harry Potter was concerned. All of him.

Following the start of the winter break, he'd been virtually alone in Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff, but the Weasleys had kept him company in Gryffindor, distracting him from the mystery he and his friends had stumbled upon months earlier. Ravenclaw him had remembered a vague mentioning of Nicholas Flamel somewhere, but since it was Gryffindor Harry's adventure, he didn't butt in unasked. While all four Harrys were united, each tried to maintain something that was their own. For Gryffindor Harry, it was Quiddich which the other Harrys might join in on later if they were so inclined and allowed to play by their house teams despite the potential conflict of interest and this mysterious adventure that involved a locked door, a three-headed dog and someone named Nicholas Flamel. Since this adventure didn't seem dangerous enough to alarm them, they let the Gryffindor have at it and prove his bravery as it were.

The time leading up to Christmas was interesting to say the least. Since their arrival at Hogwarts, someone had deliberately tried to kill each of them, hexing Gryffindor Harry's broom, tripping Ravenclaw Harry on the stairs while he was carrying a pile of books from the library for his friends and himself, poisoning some candy and giving it to Hufflepuff Harry, and nearly cursing Slytherin Harry from behind. The Harrys' friends outside Slythein were half convinced that Snape was responsible for these incidents since he seemed to have it in for Harry, constantly being cruel and generally unpleasant to the ones who weren't in his house every time they encountered each-other. The Slytherin Harry wasn't so sure since he'd been certain that he'd seen Snape stand back and watch each Harry's reactions to each incident as if he were studying him like the Ravenclaws were wont to do. The Slytherin Harry's more friendly associates were less concerned about the other hims, didn't particularly care who was behind the assassination attempts since he'd either survive and prove his strength or not, and found Professor Snape's antics amusing.

The months since Harry's arrival at Hogwarts and the subsequent creation of the other three Harrys had had a number of ups and downs. Gryffindor Harry had won his first Quiddich game by just about swallowing the Snitch which Flint, Diggory, and Chang had each found absolutely hilarious. Slytherin Harry had dropped in the academic standings because Draco Malfoy had destroyed an end of term essay that had been worth a sizable portion of his Transfiguration grade. Hufflepuff Harry had won his house Gobstones tournament, and Ravenclaw Harry had nearly been killed by the Sixth Years who'd been experimenting on him, causing a ban on further experiments on any of the Harrys under the threat of expulsion.

Fortunately, all of the Harrys had friends to share these interesting experiences with. Hufflepuff Harry was friends with, or at the very least on friendly terms with just about everyone in his house below Fourth Year, though he did have some problems with Zacharias Smith and Ernie Macmillan whom he'd recently had a bit of a falling out with. Ravenclaw Harry had a number of friends in his year and a couple friends in the two years above, one being an Asian girl named Cho Chang who occasionally grated on his nerves, but he was rather wary of the upper years in his house and had trouble getting on with Entwistle and most of the other bossy know-it-alls who hadn't toned it down as Hermione had begun to do. For Gryffindor Harry, it was pretty much Ron and Hermione as far as friends were concerned, but he got on with the Weasleys and his dormmates and his teammates reasonably well. Slytherin Harry got on better with the girls of his year, though Zabini and Nott weren't half bad, and when it came to the older years most of them had gone from ignoring entirely to just barely tolerating him aside from the Quiddich Captain Marcus Flint who had been eyeing him speculatively and suggesting he come to Quiddich practice sometime.

Now, it was Christmas, and a rather brilliant Christmas it was. Each Harry had woken up to find a number of presents at the end of their beds. Each of the boys had received notes with a single pence and a request that none of them return for the Summer from the Dursleys. Each received candy and other odds and ends from their friends and housemates. And, each received a different item that had belonged to their father: Gryffindor Harry an invisibility cloak, Slytherin Harry a guide to pranking that had been written by a group called The Marauders, Hufflepuff Harry a worn leather glasses case which contained a number of hidden compartments which had James Potter's name embossed on it in worn gilt lettering, and Ravenclaw Harry a set of Seventh Year textbooks which had hand-written notes in the margins. Gryffindor Harry had been the only one to receive a Weasley sweater, but that was understandable considering the Weasley family's limited means and the fact that only he was Ron Weasley's friend. Hagrid however had rather kindly sent all of the Harrys Christmas Presents, though the Slytherin Harry's was smaller, and more generic rather than hand-made, presumably because of the issues Hagrid had with Slytherin which had stemmed from his Slytherin classmates' ill treatment of him when he had been a student and the fact that it had been a Slytherin who had gotten him expelled. Slytherin Harry understood, considering the fact that he wouldn't be comfortable being around much less friendly with a member of a group that harmed and harassed him such as Piers Polkiss for instance, and he appreciated the fact that Hagrid was actually making an effort when he could've easily cut him out of his life for being a Slytherin much as Ron Weasley had done.

Following a varied morning wake-up which had ranged from the Weasleys' loud and boisterous wake-up call, to his waking up completely alone on his own, there had been a day of fun and games that Gryffindor Harry had invited his other selves to, a day where the Weasleys had barely realized that Slytherin Harry was a Slytherin. After a rather intense snowball fight and some games in front of the fire where they thawed out, all of the remaining students and staff gathered in the Great Hall for a feast during which Professor Snape had sat between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw Harry and made absolutely no comments. Following the feast, each Harry made their ways to their common rooms for an evening of relaxation and in some cases contemplation.

In the Gryffindor Common room, Harry broke in his new chess set which had come out of a Christmas Cracker with Ron Weasley who'd been happy about the subscription to a rather popular quiddich magazine. In the Ravenclaw common room, Harry settled into a reading nook with a fantasy novel which one of the older students had left behind, ignoring the notes which dissected the story's magic which were written in the margins. In Hufflepuff, Harry played with the hand-made yo-yo that Hagrid had sent him, happy to have a toy that wasn't broken for once. In Slytherin Harry picked up the hand-written book by the Marauders, securing the unsigned note which had said "Your father had this confiscated from him when he was a student. As long as you are more responsible with it than he was, it will not be confiscated from you. Merry Christmas." between two pages near the back of the book after it fell out of its former spot between the front cover and the flyleaf.

All in all, it had been a good day, and the best Christmas that Harry could remember.


End file.
